foam magazine #19 / wonder theme introduction 027 foam magazine #19 / wonder theme introduction 028 foam magazine #19 / wonder theme introduction ~ With the Ability to Marvel ~ by Marcel Feil ~ curator Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam Imagine that the Martians succeeded, after all, in reaching Planet Earth it doesn’t. Perhaps the ability to feel wonder and surprise is an intrin- and managed a safe landing. Without us earthlings noticing, they have sic human quality. It makes us ask questions and is therefore the origin lived among us for some time and have been able to examine our plan- of knowledge and development. This, however, may be where the snake et at their leisure. It is interesting to attempt to see our own environ- bites its own tail. For the more we know about the way the world is put ment through their eyes. What do they see? What strikes them? And together, the greater the danger that this will colour our way of looking what will fascinate them enough to take back with them as typical of at things and that prior knowledge will obstruct our ability to feel genu- our planet? ine wonder. In fact, however, our amazement may actually increase as our knowledge grows, and every answer may open up unknown worlds What these questions are really about, of course, is an attempt to see the and raise new questions. This would make scientists the people with the world we assume to be familiar without any prior knowledge, without any strongest sense of amazement about our wondrous and inexplicable prejudice or hypotheses. It is an attempt to see and experience things as world. they really are, as they exist outside of us. It’s a renewed acquaintance without artificial connotations, and therefore as objective as possible. Knowledge comes with the years. The occasional genuinely amazed sci- Of course that is extremely difficult, if not impossible. How can we es- entist aside, the fact is that as time passes we feel less and less won- cape from our own selves and experience the true nature of things? And der and amazement. We just don’t have the time. There’s too much to what is that, anyway, the true nature of something? It’s a question which do. In our daily lives we are mainly occupied with practicalities: getting philosophers and scientists have been asking themselves for centuries, dressed, eating, going to work, working, returning home. All our time is and which they have not been able to answer satisfactorily. The prob- taken up with day-to-day worries, with all the things we still have to and lem is greatest when man and his actions are themselves the subject want to do. Wonder is something for daydreamers, and our society is too of observation, examination and analysis. That is where we encounter focused on usefulness and efficiency to give them much sympathy or most obstacles. But in fact the same goes for every form of observation space. Our activities are result-oriented and it is on their results they are and for all phenomena. It has never really proved possible to separate judged and valued. This attitude defines our perception, the way we see the things around us from ourselves. Our links with the world, and vice and experience things. Our brain filters out everything we don’t need, at a versa, are so strong that it is not particularly odd to conclude that they given moment. And that is just as well. We cannot afford to walk around are inextricably connected and that the world exists only because of us in a constant state of utter amazement. We would be caught in an autis- and within us. tic ecstasy. To function well in society, too much amazement is no help at Does this mean that we cannot be amazed about what happens all. I use e-mail and the internet dozens of times every day. I know how on our planet? Yes, that indeed is what it means. But it doesn’t mean it works. By which I mean I know how to use it. I have come to take it for that we cannot be amazed by the things we see around us. Thank God granted that it works if I hit a few keys. That no longer surprises me. But 029 foam magazine #19 / wonder theme introduction 030 foam magazine #19 / wonder theme introduction 031 foam magazine #19 / wonder theme introduction 032 foam magazine #19 / wonder One of the few fields where wonder has found a natural place is art. Art theme introduction exists by virtue of a fresh way of looking at our world and the ability to be amazed by it. This gives form and meaning to the sense of wonder. It’s the opposite of the practical and profit-oriented thinking that so impov- ~ erishes our society. In itself, art has no practical use. Rarely has a tree been so beautifully portrayed as by the Hungar- A sense of wonder cannot ian writer and photographer Peter Nadas. He has a wild pear tree in his garden, which he photographed for a year at different times of the day really be learned. and in different seasons, in ever changing light. The photographs are a silent, modest testament to the passage of time, barely perceptible but It’s something that comes unstoppable and merciless. They are accompanied by My Own Death, a short story in which a man sees his life pass before his eyes while ly- over you, suddenly and when ing on the floor after a heart attack. After three and a half minutes, he comes round again. It’s an occurrence that is as horrifying as it is com- you least expect it. monplace. The two stories, presented in two different forms with differ- ent speeds, speak of time, mortality, acceptance and resistance, and of ~ the thin line between life and death. Life and death, rise and fall are as incomprehensible as they are self-evident – for both the man and the tree. The difference is that the man knows it and suffers because of it. of course I don’t really know in any detail how it works or how it has been He can look back and see himself, albeit only briefly. constructed. There’s no need for me to know. It’s an invention I’m eager to Perhaps life itself is, ultimately, the greatest wonder. No one knows use to my advantage without having a clue about the technology. That’s why we are born, why we are who we are, how much time we have in this nothing compared to the next generation, the teenagers in the street or life or what the idea of death really is. I often think of the last words of a in the playground. They are growing up in a world of gaming, broadband, good friend’s grandfather. He had devoted his whole life to the essence satellites, interactive TV, texting and messaging. Nothing amazes them of man and to the way it relates to the rest of the universe. ‘Well, I won- any more. The inherent danger is that they’ll believe anything. Everything der…’, he said – and then he died. Intrigued till the end, he surrendered is possible – why shouldn’t it be? to the inevitable. But how do you develop the ability to be amazed? Knowledge can be While Nadas has created a very moving series about aging, the passing acquired, and so can behaviour and perhaps even taste. But wonder? It of time and mortality, in her beautiful book Aila, the Japanese photog- seems that it is an ability that only decreases as the years go by, crushed rapher Rinko Kawauchi shows her bond with the world in quite a dif- by the pressure of an achievement-oriented technology-based society. ferent way. Kawauchi’s work is atmospheric and indirect. She shows a The danger that we take everything for granted, that we just accept ev- world caught in a divine light, before good and evil, a paradisiacal envi- erything we come across and lose our awareness of the wondrous, the ronment where all things have their natural place, however strange they bizarre, the unusual and the different is lurking just around the corner. may appear to us. It is an enchanted, vulnerable and fragile world. For I recently watched one of my daughters closely study a strawber- Kawauchi it is of great importance that the people who see her work do ry. An ordinary strawberry. She took her time to do so, because a three- so in an atmosphere of peace and security, as if, through her work, she year-old doesn’t yet have any real idea of time. She stared at it intensely. wants to create an intimate and safe place to counterbalance the hurry After a while she said: ‘Look daddy, lots of little hairs!’ She held up the and agitation of everyday life. In an interview with Masakazu Takei she strawberry, with an expression in which wonder and acceptance were once said: ‘I want to create a quiet, intimate place where people can be in perfect harmony. She was right: every segment of the strawberry had alone and listen to their inner voices while they are looking at my work.’ its own yellowy-green little hair. It’s something we could observe on any In her view, the photographs serve as instruments for reflection and strawberry, but when do we take the time to study a strawberry in this meditation. They require a staring, unthinking way of looking, provoking way? Her discovery was the result of the untainted observation of a child an awareness of the miracle of life and of our living planet at every lev- who looks before she thinks.